


Jail Break

by sadlikeknives



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 15:50:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13662219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/pseuds/sadlikeknives
Summary: Sam and Red have to rescue Vasquez from a bounty hunter. Again.





	Jail Break

**Author's Note:**

  * For [within_a_dream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/gifts).



Red and Sam had left Vasquez sleeping off a sore head that morning as they rode out to see if they could catch their latest target's trail. When they returned, it was well past noon, so the bed on the other side of the room Sam and Vasquez were sharing being empty shouldn't have made the hair on the back of Sam's neck stand on end, but it did. 

Every now and then, someone decided to try for the bounty on Vasquez. Oh, usually they could talk their way out of it, but sometimes it was a bit trickier than that.

Sam had never meant to stick with Red and Vasquez; had assumed that after they left Rose Creek they'd all split up and go their own ways, like as not never see each other again. Somehow, it had never wound up happening. It seemed you could not do something like what the three of them had done together, and live through it, and then merely walk away.

"He could be in the saloon," Red said. "They won't let me in to check." They barely let Sam in, and anyway, Vasquez wasn't in the saloon, or the store, or the barbershop, or the livery stable checking on his horse, who was happily munching on hay in her stall. There wasn't a whole lot of town here, which left about one option.

"Hell," Sam said, and headed for the jail, Red right behind him. There were two ways he could play this, and by the time he hit the doors to the jail he'd decided trying to claim Vasquez was already his bounty was too risky. It had worked before, when he'd gauged 'definitely the wrong Vasquez' unlikely to, but not when the other party already had Vasquez behind bars—and sure enough, there was Vasquez, looking resigned and annoyed inside one of the jail's two cells, being guarded by the sheriff's deputy, sitting behind the sheriff's desk, and a mangy-looking white man who must be the bounty hunter. He appeared to have the scrofula. "Gentlemen," Sam said as they looked up at his entrance. "Sam Chisolm, at your service, duly sworn warrant officer from Wichita, Kansas, licensed peace officer in Arkansas, Indian Territory, Nebraska, and seven other states." He nobly ignored Vasquez mouthing along with him from behind the bars. "I was looking to report my friend missing, but I see that you've found him...and put him in a cell? I thought you said you just got drunk last night," he said over the bounty hunter's shoulder to Vasquez. "What did you do?"

"Killed some ranger down in Texas, according to this _pendejo_ ," Vasquez complained. "I tell them, you have the wrong man, but they don't listen to me. When is this supposed to have happened, anyway?" The bounty hunter, whose name Sam had still not bothered to get, admitted he didn't know, but read off the date the poster had been issued, and Vasquez made an explosive sound of derision.

"Well, there you go, then," Sam said. "Mr. Vasquez wasn't even in Texas then!"

" _Sí, sí,_ " Vasquez agreed quickly. "I was in California then, working for the Cullens in Rose Creek."

"But it looks just like him," the bounty hunter insisted, pointing at the poster. "And he said his name was Vasquez when I asked!"

Sam looked pityingly upon the man. "You think _this_ looks like _him_?"

The deputy stood up and took the poster then, comparing it to Vasquez. "The beard, maybe," he allowed, sounding like he was starting to doubt the course of events that had led to Vasquez being locked up in his jail himself.

"You're not planning to arrest every Vasquez with a beard you meet and drag them to Tascosa, Texas, are you, son?" Sam asked. "Because I have to tell you, you are not going to get far in this profession with that plan of attack."

Red took the poster from the man and held it up next to Vasquez. "They did get your beard right," he said, but thankfully he said it in Comanche.

"What'd he say?" the bounty hunter asked. "Hey, I don't speak Injun."

"He said only a white man would think this looked anything like our friend," Sam said, his voice flat as the Kansas prairie. "Tell you what, how about we send a telegram to the Widow Cullen, out in Rose Creek, get this settled?" Emma would be annoyed, for sure, but she'd vouch for Vasquez. She'd done it before.

"I don't think that'll be necessary," the deputy said as he stood up from behind the desk. "It's obviously not the same man."

"But Jack!" the bounty hunter protested. "Did you see the bounty on him?"

"I ain't getting any of I, am I?" Deputy Jack reasoned. "And if you drag the wrong guy to Texas you're not getting any of it, either. Stop wasting my time, Jim." He unlocked Vasquez's cell and told him, "You're free to go, son," despite the fact that Vasquez was at least five years older than him. "Might be best if you boys got on out of town before there are any more misunderstandings."

"Well, now, it might be," Sam agreed. "I believe our business here is concluded, anyway." Vasquez shot him a questioning look, and Sam shook his head at him: later. He could explain that they were pretty sure Smilin' Ben Bradford wasn't around these parts any more while they packed. He tipped his hat to the deputy and the bounty hunter and said, "Gentlemen," and then the three of them left the jail quickly, before anyone could change their mind.

"Maybe you should change the beard," Red suggested.

"Speak English, _cabrón_ , if I have to, you can," Vasquez bitched. Then he hurried up for a few steps to catch up to Sam, grab his shoulder and lean around it to ask him, "What did he say?"

"He said you're ugly and if you haven't got any better sense than to say 'yes' when strangers ask you your name, maybe we should just let the next one haul you back to Texas," Sam said without breaking his stride toward the boarding house.

"He didn't say all that," Vasquez argued, glancing uncertainly toward Red, who looked as implacable as ever, though there was laughter at the back of his eyes if you knew how to look. "You didn't say I'm ugly, did you?" Red just shrugged.

"I said he did, didn't I? Now let's get out of this town and go find ourselves a job."


End file.
